A signature achievement of President Obama's first term was the raid that killed Osama bin Laden at his Abbottabad, Pakistan, compound, the culmination of a decade-long manhunt. Obama's drone policy came under fire during the Senate confirmation of CIA director John Brennan. Sen. Rand Paul, R-Ky., led a nearly 13-hour filibuster of Brennan, demanding that the Obama administration clarify whether the president had the legal authority to use drones against American citizens in the United States.

March 7: Senate approves Brennan as director of the CIA. His confirmation followed a week of debate over his nomination, including a nearly 13-hour filibuster by Paul over the Obama administration's drone policy.

March 8: Sulaiman Abu Ghayth, an al-Qaeda spokesman and son-in-law of bin Laden who had been captured in Jordan, pleads not guilty in a New York federal courthouse of conspiring to kill Americans. Some Republican lawmakers criticize the Obama administration's decision to try Ghayth in New York rather than at the U.S. military base at Guantanamo Bay.